Research for Scholarly Legal Writing

There are many sources you may want to browse if you need ideas for a paper topic. Some places you might find "hot topics" are:

Lexis+

• Emerging Issues is a series of publications that cover important and emerging issues with guidance written by expert attorneys; commentaries cover recent cases, regulations, legislation, trends, and developments 
• National Law Journal is a monthly newsletter written for lawyers covering current legal events and trends

Westlaw

• Topical Highlights are current awareness updates prepared by the West editorial staff that summarize recent developments in specific legal areas
• Legal News is a broad collection of news for legal practitioners in a wide range of practice areas; can filter to focus on particular topics

Blawgs (legal blogs) can also be great sources of inspiration if you have a general sense of your area of interest.

Selected blogs can be searched on Westlaw and Lexis.

• Fee Fie Foe Firm is a search engine specifically for law firm websites that will capture their press releases and blog posts written by experienced practitioners. You can use this to search for topics and areas that interest you and quickly see whether there are any recent interesting legal developments
• Legal Scholarship Blog covers legal symposia, colloquia, and workshops, providing insight into the current areas of interest for legal scholars and faculty.

Blawg directories can help you identify which cover particular topics, as well as when and how often they are generally updated.

• ABA Journal Blawg Directory
• Justia Blawg Search

Legal News

• Westlaw: Legal Newspapers includes U.S. and international sources
• Lexis: 
  • Law360 has breaking legal news stories across a wide range of areas and jurisdictions; it can be searched or browsed alone on Lexis, or searched as part of the Legal News collection
  • ALM, publisher of the National Law Journal, has a wide variety of legal news publications also available on Lexis; to browse or search, Homepage > Explore Content box > Legal News > ALM Media
    • The National Law Journal is a great place to read about recent Circuit splits, which are often fruitful topics for writing

Popular News

• Westlaw: search all U.S. newspapers, all international newspapers, or just major U.S. newspapers
• Lexis: search all U.S. and worldwide news sources on their site, or limit to just major newspapers, either in the U.S. or worldwide
• University databases
  • ProQuest
  • Academic Search Premier
  • ABI/INFORM Complete